


Song of Purple Summer

by galoots



Series: Loots Duck Universe (LDU) [4]
Category: Disney Duck Universe, Disney Ducks (Comics)
Genre: Adolescence, Coming of Age, Gen, Mental Health Issues, anger issues, good parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galoots/pseuds/galoots
Summary: After a momentous last year of junior high, Donald must untangle the painful trials and tribulations of adolescence at his Grandmother's farm. Will this summer prove as disastrous as the events that preceded it? Or will Donald find some solace among his loving family and some like-minded friends?





	Song of Purple Summer

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note for whom Ducktales serves as their own reference point into the Duckverse. I've rewritten the characters within according to my own universe; one that specifically derives from the comics and not the show. As a result, Della is back to being Donald's cousin as she was originally in the Taliaferro strip, and she'll bear little resemblance to the Della of the reboot. That being said, she will play a crucial role in this story as Donald's close confidant, best friend, and quasi-older sister. She'll make her appearance in later chapters, and I hope you like my take on her!

The countryside streaked by the window, a wash of earthy tones, a woven patchwork of land that stretched out to the horizon. Donald leaned his head against the cool glass of the passenger window in his uncle’s car as it glided over un-even pavement. The window’s vibrations translated into a pleasant hum inside his head. Eyes closed, Donald tried to tune into the specific frequency of that reverberating thrum. Perhaps, if he could manage it, that steady buzz could null the agitated fluctuations of his final year of junior high. All the pain, the embarrassment, and the humiliations that had muffled a voice once stentorian now smoothed. Gone would be the recollections of a stuttering adolescence; replaced only with the steady, uniform drone of his uncle’s regulated driving. Stranded between the city behind him and the country up ahead, he could stay here fixed between the two, adrift in the blurry expressionist streaks of motion and time.

But time slid onward, and with every acre that whizzed past, they neared their destination. Usually, Donald spent his summer vacations at home; fishing at the creek, inhaling sea salt ice cream, camping in the woods, all with his friends by his side. This year, he was headed to his Grandmother’s farm where his cousins would likewise be whiling away their sun-soaked days. Their relatives, lead by the matriarchal governance of Grandma Elvira, had conspired a plan to converge their mischief-makers together at one spot. A fair deal for Gus, he supposed, who lived with Gramma year-round. Surely, the seasonal change brought little variance beyond the brief cessation of his schooling and the intermittent cycling of chores. For Donald and the others, however, it meant a change in both locale and routine. Therefore, his cousins—Gladstone, Della, and Fethry—were all making similar journeys from shaded, sleepy suburbs and crowded, bustling metropolises to the common ground of Elvira’s farm. She had been the one to suggest it, naturally, and their corresponding guardians, desperately in need of their own break, had readily agreed.

All--that was--save for Scrooge. After the incident that nearly resulted in his expulsion, his uncle had been loath to let his ward stray too far. Even now, there were still bills to settle, parents and school officials to placate, apologies to be made, counseling sessions to attend. Why send Donald away from his calm, watchful presence after such a hectic year? His grandmother, ever the logician, had plied Scrooge with a counter-point of her own. The boy had a hard year. What better way to move on then to leave it all behind? The gentle rhythms of country life, slow but structured, would work wonders for his temper. Besides, Gramma extoled, there was no ache too great nor situation so dire that the soothing comforts of family couldn’t ease.

Swayed by her reasoning, his uncle had assented. One paternal conversation later, and Donald had agreed as well. In fact, in a manner far more compliant than Scrooge had expected. It had seemed so uncharacteristic of the oft surly teen to actively seek time away from his friends and immediate family that it gave Scrooge a sense of unease. He respected his nephew’s decision, however, and waylaid his fears with the belief that Donald needed time away. More than likely, Scrooge suspected, that Donald missed the company of his grandmother and his cousins, who he hadn’t seen since last Christmas. He did his best to give Donald all that he needed, but even he could admit the lack of a mothering presence in their household. Maybe it was that feminine touch he could not provide that Donald craved; enough to part from his side for three long months.

Now, with the moment of their arrival quickly drawing near, Scrooge was having second doubts. He roused Donald from his slumped position against the car window with a light squeeze to his shoulder. “How are you feeling, lad?”

Donald lolled his head on his shoulder. “Carsick.”

“We can still call things off you know. Head back. Have a quiet summer vacation at home. Just the three of us.”

Donald considered this proposition. If he was being honest, it’d be a relief to have Scrooge by his side. Yet, at the same time, the thought of one more grade-schooler crossing the street at the sight of him, or a middle-schooler whispering ‘psycho’ as he passed, or another wary parent eyeing him with unconcealed disdain, only reaffirmed the forward course they’d set. “No. It’s just Gramma’s house. I’ll be fine, Uncle Scrooge.”

“I know you’ll be fine, but can you blame me for wanting to keep you all to myself?” Scrooge smiled with nervous agitation, glancing at Donald’s reflection in the rear-view mirror. “It’s just that, well, it’s barely been a month since—”

“Uncle Scrooge, Please.”

“Sorry,” Scrooge shot him another glance charged with nervous energy. “You know I’m a worrier. You get that from my side of the family. McDuck’s are worriers, alright. Not your father’s family though. I swear your dad was as happy as the day is long. I don’t think he ever worried about anything in his livelong life. Maybe that’s why he was so happy-go-lucky all the time. And Elvira! Now there’s a steadfast, resolute old hen. Not even an earthquake could shake her.” He was aware of doing what he always did when nervous: babble.

Not that Donald seemed to mind. His ramblings had Donald laughing, a sound that Scrooge always loved to hear. With a flip of his hair, Donald teased him back. “I’m gonna tell her you called her an old hen. She’ll flip!”

Scrooge let out a scandalized squawk. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would!” He grinned widely. “She’s gonna drag you out by your tail and you’ll be picking pea pods ‘til the sun comes up!”

“And to think, here I was: about to let Elvira give you your first driving lessons on your birthday.” Scrooge tutted softly, shaking his head back and forth.

“Wait,” Donald leaned over the seat partition excitedly, grabbing at his uncle’s arm. “Seriously? Did you mean that?”

With a slow turn of the wheel, Scrooge eased the car down the rural road leading to Elvira’s farm. He hummed noncommittally, playing it nonchalant.

With no regard to the dangers it posed, Donald shook his uncle by the arm he was driving with. “I take it back! I won’t say anything! Mum’s the word! Honest!”

As they pulled up the driveway, albeit a bit shakily, Scrooge said nothing, choosing to smile slyly as he looked away from Donald. The car slowed to a crawl as Scrooge came to a stop, parking diligently like he always did. Once finished, they both clicked off their seatbelts, but made no move to get out. Donald looked at the three-story farmhouse, all weathered and worn. His uncle reached across the seat divider to affectionately pinch his cheek. “Remember, I’m only a phone call away, ok?”

Donald nodded. He endeavored to convince himself that he could handle this. That this was precisely what he needed. The year was just an etch-a-sketch covered in frantically drawn, ever-intersecting lines. A jagged mess of written cacophony with no direction nor sense of forward progression issued from a palsied hand. This summer would gently shake away the hurried, painful tangle of lines with an easy, calm motion. Leaving him with a blank grey-toned canvas to begin to trace something new, something which, unlike before, would cohere to a picture that was graceful in design, expertly rendered, and pleasing to the eye. He knew, deep down, in the pit of his stomach, that such a task was insurmountable for him, and each artistic venture would give way to a painful cavalcade of inevitabilities; wherein, he’d repeat past mistakes, never learning, never changing, only sliding back into the same self-destructive instances that had carved out his present. He was a self-fulfilling prophecy from which good could never come. A smart man, faced with a similar realization, would reconcile himself to it; Donald, however, raged against it. It’d be one thing, Donald thought, for him to suffer by his own hand except that this was so rarely the case. No matter how hard he tried to direct it away, it was also those closest to him who endured the most. As hard as the fallout out had been for him, hadn’t it been Scrooge and Duckworth who endured the worst? Without intending to, Donald had become the albatross that hung around his long-suffering guardians’ neck, and he feared the day would never come when he would prove a boon instead of a hindrance. So, it was only fitting, he supposed, to force his own exile from his uncle’s care. To give him, if nothing else, a brief respite from the fourteen-year nuisance he’d been saddled with.

He wanted so badly to be good, yet he always seemed able to stop just short of it. But when exactly had he gone from not being good enough to not being good at all?

“Donald?” His uncle gently prodded with the kind of loving concern Donald feared he didn’t deserve. “You will call if you need me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I will, Uncle Scrooge.”

“Good boy,” Scrooge answered, satisfied with his response.

From somewhere deep inside him, a small, insidious voice he did not recognize whispered: _if only that were true. _

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so this is the fic I've been planning for awhile and I hope you can see why. I put a lot of work into the prose. I really wanted this to read like a novel, one you might pick up because you like coming of age stories (which I most certainly do!) Please leave comments if you did enjoy it as I always read them and try to respond!


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